Tag Archives: rum

Flip-flops.

Even in places where flip flops aren’t the best choice. Like anyplace that isn’t a beach.

You can hear them coming. And going. Without looking at feet, you know what’s on them.

Flip-flop.

So while the girl was asking, “Have you ever heard of a drink called…..a flap?” I was hearing flip-flops.

I asked her if she meant

“Frappe”

And she smiled real big and said, Yes, THAT’S it!” and her sister got closer, and her Mom and there were others and it was hard to tell who was together-together and who was just together as in there in the moment together.

So I describe how a frappe was a milkshake with ice cream, and if they ordered a milkshake ‘round these parts, they were likely to get shook milk, no ice cream.

Her sister asked, “But where’s the

RUM?”

Flip-flop. Flip-flop. Flip-flop.

Yo

Both girls were under the age of 12 so rum drinks weren’t what I first thought of when this line of questioning began, and then I remembered….

“FLIP?

Are you asking about Flip?

Now everyone was smiling and nodding….

Now, thanks to Paula Marcoux I know from flip.

Beer, rum, molasses, hot poker, done.

I know oodles of other things from her, too, but flip and rum had come up recently, and put her in my thoughts, and memories of flips past…. in the way rum drinks do here in New England. It’s not exactly flip season here, with temperatures and humidity both in the high ‘80’s, but no season is truly far from another here in New England, so soon enough it will be flip appropriate time.

illustration fro Rum: A Global History

I had recently been flipping through Mrs. Child’s (Lydia Maria, not Julia) “American Frugal Housewife”, the way one does in the food history biz.

I was (and still am) wrestling with the differences/different-name-for-the-same-thing conundrum between flapjacks, slapjacks and flatjacks. In short, sorting out the Jack branch of the fritter family.

Which started with Johnnycake and Hoe Cake, and is detouring through Pancake, with short stops in Griddle Cake, Mush Cake and Corn Cake……

While looking at pancakes, and I saw this:

Pancakes

“…A spoonful or two of N.E. rum makes pancakes light. Flip makes very nice pancakes. In this case, nothing is done but to sweeten your mug of beer with molasses; put in one glass of N.E. rum; heat it till it foams, by putting in a hot poker; and stir it up with flour as thick as other pancakes.”

Paula’s has directions for flip (with a photo step by step) in Cooking With Fire. And she has notes on these pancakes in the appendix, where she recommends adding a pinch of salt and an egg. And cook them in bacon grease. All good.

I’m still thinking about rum in pancakes……with blueberry pancakes and cinnamon? With rum butter? Are these supper pancakes rather than breakfast pancakes?

So I told the girls about flip pancakes, too.

And then I wondered – what sort of New England Colonial Educational Experience was this family on that involved Flip? Cause that’s the field trip that I want to go on.

I have more RUM books then I thought – all that Living Proof at Plimoth Plantation